Using Microsoft Outlook with Lotus Notes

Using Microsoft Outlook with Lotus Notes

09-13-2002, 10:11 AM

For years, I have been a BIG advocate of using Microsoft Outlook both at home and at work for an organizational tool and for its flexibility. At my new employer, I find myself in a Lotus Notes environment, and the interface of the Notes client is far less flexible, by comparison. Has anyone found a way to simply substitute Microsoft Outlook as a the "front-end" client for a Notes Server, and regain the flexibility it provides for email, tasks, calendar, and address book, without impacting I.T. on the backend?

Comment

Same issue here. We are standardized on Notes, but I like Outlook. What I do is use Notes for the shared databases, but I have Outlook setup to do all of my email, contacts, calendar, etc. Of course the calendar is only a stand-alone and can't be use as a shared or group calendar (I have to use Notes for that). But, I was able to setup outlook to access our Domino email server by listing it as an "Internet email" server and specifying the IP address of the Domino server. Drives my IT people crazy, but they tolerate it.

Depening on what you are allowed to do by your IS folks, here are two possible solutions to your situation.

First, it is possible to use Outlook as a "front-end" to Lotus Notes for e-mail. This can be done using the IMAP connectivity or as a simple e-mail client. You lose many of the cool features of Notes but you have the Outlook Client that you desire.

Second, you may want to take a look to see what I have done with Lotus Notes. I have configured the Lotus Notes Default E-Mail template to use the GTD organization system. (See http://www.ica.com) I have been using this template for over 4 years and it has been stable in its present format for the past two. The screen shots and narrative may give you some ideas for organizing your own systems.